The United Provinces, Civic Coalition, and Federal Encounter blocs rejected the decree of necessity and urgency (DNU) that reforms the Intelligence Law and demanded the restoration of parliamentary control over the activities of the Secretariat of Intelligence (SIDE).
«The decree of necessity and urgency by which the Executive Branch intends to comprehensively reform the National Intelligence Law. There is no need or urgency that justifies addressing such a sensitive issue outside of Congress. It states that all intelligence activities will have a 'covert character', increasing opacity in an area that the original law was designed to have strict limits and parliamentary control».
«It also extends the logic of counterintelligence to the entire National Public Sector, a measure that opens the door to surveillance practices over areas and workers that have nothing to do with sensitive tasks. And it authorizes intelligence personnel to apprehend individuals in cases of flagrante delicto, a power that belongs to the security forces and contradicts the democratic consensus built since the return of democracy: intelligence services cannot become a secret police», they expressed.
The opposition blocs also stated that «the DNU advances on that consensus without public debate, without specialists, without civil society organizations, and without listening to the voice of the provinces».
«We demand that Congress treat and immediately reject the decree under the terms of Law 26.122, and we demand that any reform to the intelligence system be discussed as it should be: in Parliament, in full view of society», they added.
«National security is a legitimate objective, but it cannot be built by weakening the Constitution, Congress, and the guarantees that protect every citizen. It is essential that the Bicameral on Legislative Procedure and the Bicameral on Oversight of Intelligence Agencies be constituted and appointed immediately to restore the control system that the Constitution demands», they agreed.
Furthermore, the blocs pointed out that «the decree introduces modifications of enormous impact. Even less so when the bicameral commissions that must control the intelligence services and the use of DNUs themselves are still incomplete. We will not validate, by action or omission, a more opaque, more concentrated, and less controlled intelligence scheme», they indicated.
